“The problem is that nothing in your response is a good reason for us to listen to you.  Killkannons are overpriced jokes. Stormboyz are double the cost of a normal boy for jump packs.  If you want to convince us that these units are anything other than what everyone knows they are, offer reasons. Offer what makes them good. Explain what situations they help you win in, how they do this, etc. What tactics you use, how you move them, how you deploy them, etc. etc. etc.

Every time, it’s the same tired crap – “I won X, I beat player Y, I can compete at N,M,O. I personally know this is good, so if you say the army is bad, I’ll pretend it’s a personal insult to me and get offended exactly like you called me ugly or said I was really dumb.”

That shit is why Blood of Kittens, Warseer, and half the fucking sites on the web are total jokes. And no, there is nothing personal about an army list. It’s a bunch of words on paper, and I am telling you that if you want to convince people that Killkannons and Stormboyz are good, you need more than “trust me, I’m really fucking cool and have a 13″ dick.””

-GreyIce on this thread: http://kirbysblog-ic.blogspot.com/2010/10/codex-orks-review-part-7-ork-list.html

Comments are too short to do justice to all of this, but let me just hit the high points here.

First of all, the main point of the article that Fester wrote and what I was chiming in on was that Orks play differently than other armies, and to be successful with them, you have to play the game differently.

Essentially, Orks don’t play MSU, and they don’t play like Marines.  If you try and play them that way, you will lose spectacularly.

Instead of sitting there trying to figure out how to make Orks work like your Marines, try and figure out how to use their strengths!

In regards to Stormboyz specifically… double the cost of a boy (oooh, 12 WHOLE points) in order to move as fast a Thunder Wolf Cav and you get grenades so you can fight simo with guardsmen you charge in cover as well as lets you be S4 every turn if you are still stuck on a vehicle.

What does a stormboy give you?  A fast moving, CHEAP combat model that can lay waste to most other infantry on a charge and has mediocre anti tank in close combat.  In addition, its a Nob delivery system and the Nob is what wrecks crap.  Sure it has a poor save, but its also incredibly easy to get a cover save in 5th edition, so go get one!

Its also easier to jump from cover to cover as you move sooo quickly.  Also, in the world of Mechanized, most weapon systems are designed to crack armor and therefore having lots of guys with cover saves means that you aren’t likely to lose them unless your opponent uses up a LOT of firepower to negate them.

How do you use Stormboyz?  Well, that’s going to depend on your opponent, the terrain, the mission, what turn it is, what other stuff is in your army at the start and at that point in the game.  Essentially, 40k has sooooo many variables that you can’t just give a quick synopsis of how to use a model (unless you advocate shooty Mech because the game plan is almost the same then).

In regards to a kill kannon, why is it overpriced?  If you didn’t notice, or didn’t bother to read what I wrote (since you just write off things without attempting to read them if they are from BoK); my Battlewagon isn’t being used in the standard fashion.  Its designed to be hard to kill and provide KFF cover for my units around it, and be a scoring unit (thanks to the gretchin).  The killkannon is great, because I play a LOT of marines in transports (or on bikes or jumpy kinds with BA…); and its fun to pop their ride and then blast the occupants inside!

Sure they get a cover save, but that’s a lot of wounds if it lands.  Frankly, the threat of the killkannon is often enough to make my foe re-consider coming into range of it.

On top of that, its yet another option I have for trying to crack open transports at need.

And, GreyIce, I’m not insulted, I’m not upset, I’m just sad that you have such a narrow mindset that you can’t sit there and try and figure out why something works other than “your opponents suck”.  There are more, reliable, competitive builds out there that aren’t MSU Mechanized.  Instead of harping on the increased survivability of transports, what about the increased potency of infantry as they can get cover saves more easily?  What about how the run move made them more mobile?

Like I mentioned in a previous article that you never read since its on BoK, perhaps the issue people have with Orks is more that it doesn’t fit their play-style and they can’t make it work.  I readily admit it is more difficult to play with Orks than other armies as you have less margin for error in judgement (although you are allowed more leeway with dice deviation…).

I know its fun to deride tournament records and such as being meaningless or simply microcosms of the game as a whole; but if you look at the number of golden tickets given out to Orks and compare it to say Space Marines or Tau…  What conclusion do you draw?  That Orks get lucky more often than those other armies at tournaments consistently?  That only non-competitive people played against all those Ork players?  I just don’t get this.

I take the Occam’s Razor approach.  Orks are winning big tournaments, therefore, they are probably competitive.

And, finally, how do *you* determine who to listen to?  Why do you give certain people credence when they make judgment calls on things?  Me?  I listen to people who go to lots of tournaments and have lots of success there.  I find that they have a wider knowledge base of what is effective and what isn’t. I try and listen for people doing things  outside the box” to see if they’ve figured something new out.

Like the guy at WargamesCon that was doing well with 9 lictors.  I had written off lictors ages ago; but it got my brain churning, and I made a list with 9 lictors and ended up doing really well with it against lots of mech forces (which I thought would be their bane).  That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about; instead of writing off ideas as absurd, try and figure out how to make them work.